


Turning the Tables

by rahleeyah



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24708226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahleeyah/pseuds/rahleeyah
Summary: it-is-bugs gave us the drabble prompt "body swap" on tumblr and I have gotten a little carried away. This is just a bit of fun. Jean and Lucien find themselves suddenly in each other's bodies, and awkwardness - and perhaps a little understanding - ensues.
Relationships: Jean Beazley/Lucien Blake
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

Technically, Lucien supposed it was a gross invasion of privacy. Jean was his _housekeeper_ , a prim and proper lady who valued her privacy and never set foot outside her bedroom without her skirt perfectly pressed, her hair perfectly styled, her makeup perfectly...perfect. Jean would never want him to see her this way. She'd certainly never want him to touch her this way.

But Lucien had, as a result of forces he did not understand (nor did he want to), spent the last twelve hours inside of her body. Somehow, someway, electricity had surged through the house and sparks had flown from every plug and when he opened his eyes the house was all in darkness, and he was suddenly looking up at his own terrified face from a perspective six inches shorter than he was used to, wearing the most uncomfortable pair of shoes he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter.

He had screamed - well, _Jean_ had screamed, in his voice - and he had watched his own body flee from him in terror. She'd locked herself in her room - that made him smile, thinking of his too-big body curled up on top of her floral patterned sheets - and Lucien had kicked off her shoes and gone to work.

Ostensibly he was researching the cause of this unbelievable body-swapping phenomenon, but in truth he was undertaking research of an altogether different sort.

So far he had learned that those smart clothes he'd always admired were terribly restrictive, and he'd learned that he could not master the confident swing with which she walked. He'd learned it was rather difficult to reach the top cabinets from her height, and he'd learned that he hated girdles more than he ever thought he'd hate any article of clothing.

A particularly revelatory experience had come to him about two hours into their strange metamorphosis, when he discovered, to his horror, that he - _she_ \- was in rather urgent need of the loo. What had been a task so routine as to be utterly inconsequential was suddenly a hurdle he had no notion of how to overcome. He'd had to unzip her skirt, and then he'd had to find his way through all her unmentionables, and then…

Well. That was an experience he was unlikely to forget.

Now, however, well past midnight, he was no closer to finding a way to reverse their situation, he was so fed up with the bloody girdle he could scream, he had a thumping headache - Jean's lithe body had not responded positively to his usual whiskey - and what he wanted, more than anything else, was a nice hot bath.

For a time he deliberated. He was quite sure Jean would not want him to see her naked, and certainly not under these circumstances. It seemed cruel to invade her trust like that. But he'd have to see it sometime, would have to change her clothes, would have to use the loo again, and if this went on too much longer a bath would go from an indulgence to a necessity.

 _I won't look_ , he told himself.

And so he drew the bath, and undressed himself - undressed Jean - very carefully, keeping his eyes closed as much as he could and avoiding the mirror at all costs. When at last he was bare he sank himself into the bath, and sighed in bliss. Usually his body was much too big for the bath, and he could do no more than sit and wash himself, but Jean stretched out in the warm water, luxuriated in it. It was lovely, and his eyes closed in satisfaction, rather than in a desperate grab for propriety.

The whiskey and the warm water and the strangeness of the day had done their work, however, and eventually soaking alone was not enough. With his eyes still firmly closed he reached for a rag and soap, and began, very carefully, to wash himself. To wash Jean.

It was her arms, her belly, her legs he touched - touched but still firmly refused to view - and yet it was his heart that raced, his skin that seemed to shiver with electricity. This was how she felt, when fingertips danced over her stomach, behind her knees, across her -

Lucien snatched his hands back and hung his head in shame. She would have hated him, if she knew how far afield his hands had traveled. But it was only that it felt so nice, she felt so nice, to touch and be touched; he had felt the warmth and softness of her beneath his palms and his heart had delighted in it, but he had also felt the gentle press of those palms across his own soft nipples and the feeling that inspired left him reeling. This was how she would feel, if she ever let him touch her.

The bath was torture and Lucien rose from it quickly, towled himself off blindly and then wrapped himself in his now much too big robe for the journey back to his bedroom. Once inside he folded Jean's clothes neatly on the chair and, out of habit, attempted to pull on a pair of his own clean trunks. They slid clean off his hips, and Lucien sighed.

He'd have to ask Jean for clean clothes in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Jean hated this.

She hated the heavy swing of his arms, the way she felt herself galumphing about. She hated how her feet, now so much bigger than she was used to, kher getting tangled up under her. She hated the knot of the tie like a noose around her neck. And she really, really hated the way she was suddenly, keenly aware of the weight of _something_ between her legs.

How did he live like this? She wondered as she lay stretched out on her bed. She'd tried to hug her knees to her chest but there was so bloody much of him the position grew too uncomfortable to maintain. Her back - his back, she supposed, and she hadn't known that before, that his back troubled him sometimes - protested the strain, but seemed relieved when she stretched out. But she had to change everything about the way she moved even how she settled her legs; she'd tried to roll over and yelped in pain as _something_ got caught in the movement. It was just there, all the time; how did he ever get accustomed to this? This... _thing_ , just...hanging there. Its very presence offended her.

Matters only grew worse, as the day dragged on. Lucien had yelled after her - in her own voice, and how strange that was - that he would sort something out, but Jean could not bear the thought of seeing him standing there in her body, the invasion of it, the sheer horror of it, and she had fled from him. Let him work it out on her own; she was too embarrassed to show her face.

Eventually, however, the cruel ticking of the clock betrayed her. She - he - was in need of the loo. With no other choice then she poked her head out of her bedroom door, ascertained that no one was watching, and hurried down the corridor as fast as his bulky legs would carry her.

Once inside she gave herself a very stern talking to. There was no alternative, and she knew it. I _t's not as if you've never touched one before, Jean Beazley_ , she told herself firmly. _Just do what you must._

And so she did. It was no difficult thing, unbuckling his belt, unfastening his trousers, but she hesitated at the crucial moment. This wasn't helping her sons learn to use the loo on her own. This wasn't teasing her husband, god rest his soul, in the quiet moments before a shared bath. This was Lucien, the most intimate private part of him, and she would have to take him in hand and -

 _Oh just do it before you ruin a perfectly good pair of trousers_ , she told herself.

And so she did. Blushing like a schoolgirl, she did what had to be done, and tried not to catalogue any of the details. She did her best not to look, not to register the heat of him, the weight of him in her hand, tried not to think just how very long it had been since -

 _Well. That's enough of that_.

The moment she was finished Jean stuffed herself back into her trousers - his trousers - and fled for the safety of her room once more.


	3. Chapter 3

"Jean?" Lucien called.

 _Christ_ but that was strange; when he spoke he heard her gentle, melodious voice and not his own. He'd been in her body for about eighteen hours, and he was no more comfortable with it now than he had been when this whole farce had begun. Upon waking he had been, for one too brief moment, convinced that he was himself once more; he _felt_ like himself, and surely that should have been enough. The truth came crashing in rather quickly, however, as he realized that it was Jean's lithe body lying beneath his bedsheets. When he raised his hand to examine it in the front light of dawn it was Jean's delicate fingers he saw, her perfect red painted nails. One of them had chipped, over the course of his tenure in her body and his heart sank; he rather felt he ought to take better care of her, felt as if he'd let her down, somehow.

With his eyes firmly closed he'd rolled out of bed and shrugged once more into his too big robe, stopped off at the loo - he was growing more adept at that - and then hurried immediately upstairs to check on Jean.

Which is how he ended up outside her bedroom door, knocking gently and waiting to see if she was ready to face him.

The door opened a crack, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw his own face peering down at him. If she was willing to face him, he thought, then surely matters might be improving.

"Please tell me you've come up with some way to fix this," Jean said in his voice, low and gruff from sleep.

"I have several theories," he told her, which was not entirely a lie. "I plan to test them once I've had a bit of breakfast."

"Oh, Lucien," Jean sighed. "Could you manage for yourself? I'm not ready to...well."

She was not ready to leave the sanctuary of her room, wasn't ready to face him, wasn't ready to forgive him, and Lucien knew it. While this was all something of a lark for him Jean had been behaving rather as if someone had died, and she seemed to think it was all his fault. Which it probably was, he knew, but still, her anger chafed.

"I'll manage," he told her. They were lucky in that Mattie was visiting her parents in Melbourne for the week; Lucien was certain that if they tried to explain this to her she might well think they'd both gone mad. Perhaps they had.

"There's something I need first, though," he added.

It was very strange, watching his own eyebrow lift, his own lips frown in him in an expression he recognized so well as distinctly Jean.

"I thought perhaps I might need some new clothes," he said, plucking at his robe, and Jean's eyes - his eyes - widened in horror as at last she realized he was standing before her in just that one garment and nothing else. At once the door swung open, and Lucien saw that Jean was still wearing his shirt and trousers, terribly wrinkled, as if she'd slept in them, and he felt another twinge of guilt. Jean hadn't so much as changed for bed, and he had gone and stripped her bare and taken a bath and touched her - well. That had been an accident, and one he regretted, and what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

"Oh, Lucien, tell me you didn't!" she cried. "What have you done?"

"I didn't look, I swear," he answered at once, stepping into her room. Jean stepped back from him, and it left him rather dizzy, watching his own body recoil from him in horror. "I didn't take advantage, Jean. I wouldn't do that to you. I had a bath, last night, but I kept my eyes closed the whole time."

One look at Jean's face told him plainly she did not believe him, not even for a moment.

"How could you, Lucien?" she asked him miserably.

What exactly did she think he'd done? He wondered. Did she think he'd stood before a mirror and cataloged every inch of her? Did she think his fingertips had wandered the expanse of soft, smooth skin now available to him, explored her thoroughly, from every possible angle? How could she accuse him of such a thing; how could she think him so vile? And why did she seem so afraid? Jean was quite the most attractive woman he'd seen since returning to Ballarat, and as far as he was concerned she ought to have been proud of her body, but at the moment she seemed only mortified.

"I swear to you, Jean, I have not taken any liberties. That's why I've come. I need to dress for the day, and well...I was hoping you might help me."

Jean crossed his thick arms over her chest, and Lucien found himself suddenly unnerved by the difference in their heights. Without the aid of Jean's usual pumps he found himself dramatically shorter than she, and this body, beautiful as it might have been, as strong as it might have been, was neither so broad nor so powerful as the one he was accustomed to. For the very first time, Lucien found himself wondering whether Jean had ever been afraid of him, and lamenting for it.

"I suppose we will have to do something," she said at last.

"I was hoping you might pick out the clothes, Jean, but I was also hoping...well, I don't think I'd be any good at getting dressed with my eyes closed."

"You want me to dress you?" she asked him incredulously.

 _It's either that, or let me get an eyeful_ , he thought glumly. No doubt it would be terribly awkward, standing there entirely at her mercy as she tugged on his knickers and helped him into his stockings, and the thought that it would be his own broad hands doing that work was as alarming as it was arousing. But this body was Jean's, and so he rather felt Jean was the one who ought to be in charge of it when it was at its most vulnerable, whether she was inside it or not.

"I thought it might be the best way to protect your privacy," he told her honestly. "And when we're done I can return the favor."

For a moment she simply stood, frowning at him, but at last she relented.

"All right," she sighed. "Let's give it a try."


	4. Chapter 4

Of all the strange, infuriating, impossible things Jean had endured since Lucien Blake came crashing into her life this was by far the strangest. Not only the bizarre way in which she'd found her own consciousness suddenly trapped within his hulking body but this moment, specifically, when Lucien stood patiently in the middle of her bedroom, his eyes closed, his mouth for once silent, utterly at her mercy, and wearing her own face.

Jean was forty-five years old, a mother twice over, a widow, and a woman long accustomed to the comforts and idiosyncrasies of her own body. She knew it well, inside and out, or at least she _thought_ she did; standing outside of herself, observing herself, was a revelation she was not entirely prepared to cope with. And so, for the moment, she tried not to. Lucien was keeping his eyes - her eyes - closed, and so she focused on the task at hand. There would be no cause for him to leave the house today, and so she rather felt that, for once, she could forgo stockings and a girdle. The outfit she chose ought to be something simple, something easy, something she would not mourn if Lucien ruined it in the course of one of his madcap schemes. Mattie was out of town, and she fully intended to cancel Lucien's appointments - or have him do it, so that it was her voice the patients heard; _oh,_ this was growing more complex by the moment - and so no one need see him, or rather see _her,_ looking anything other than her very best.

Once she'd obtained a clean bra and a fresh pair of knickers from her dresser she crossed the room to her tall wardrobe and rummaged through it, coming out at last with one of her favorite housedresses. It was soft, and simple, with big buttons down the front, a neat tuck at the waist but not particularly form-fitting. Lucien would be able to move easily in it, and she hoped he would be comfortable, too.

There was nothing for it, then, and so Jean turned back to him.

"All right," she said. Lucien could not see what she was doing, and it seemed wrong, somehow, to just disrobe him without some sort of warning. Even if it was only her body, a body she had seen every day for the last forty-five years, he was inside it, at the moment, and his sensibilities warranted some consideration.

"You're going to start now?" he asked, still keeping his eyes closed.

"Yes," she told him.

_Just get it over with._

Lucien stood stock still, compliant as a child being dressed for bed, as Jean carefully untied the sash around his waist, and pulled the heavy navy robe from his shoulders. The robe was made to fit Lucien's broad frame, and it had drowned Jean's much smaller body completely. As she tossed it onto the bed and turned back to him, to herself, Jean's breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she feared she might well burst into tears.

She was looking at herself, all of herself, in a way she never had done before, with a clarity no mirror could ever hope to provide. Though she would never use such a word to describe herself Jean knew that long years of celibacy and a life-long dedication to the teachings of her church had left her somewhat...of a prude; she would have preferred to call herself...hesitant, where certain matters were concerned, and though she had always been a practical soul she had not ever spent a great deal of time fussing over the more intimate details of her own appearance. There was no denying them now, however; there were her breasts, which she'd always thought were rather smaller than she'd like - her mother had promised her that pregnancy would change that, and as far as Jean was aware that was the one and only time her mother had ever been wrong about anything - softer and perhaps less shapely now than they had been in her youth. There was her stomach, lean enough, but a bit rounder than she would have liked - pregnancy _had_ changed that, and even though Jack was twenty-three, now, it seemed it would never go back to the way it had been before. There were the dimples on the outsides of her thighs, and the scar from her appendectomy, and the thatch of dark curls at her center. The slope of her shoulder, the notches of her collarbones; Jean had never seen herself quite like this, and looking at it now left her feeling strangely vulnerable. She was seized by a sudden desire to wrap that robe around her shoulders again, and hide herself from view.

"Jean?" Lucien asked softly, uncertainly, and she watched those words fall from her own lips, bare and pale without a trace of makeup.

"Knickers first, I think."

Lucien's thick legs would not support her in a sustained squat, and so she knelt at his feet, shook out the satin knickers and wrapped her hand around the back of his calf, guiding him as he obediently lifted one foot and then the other. Once he was mostly in them Jean rose and pulled the knickers up carefully, settling them about his waist. Her waist; for a moment she rested her hands there, but of course they were not _her_ hands, small and capped with her red-painted nails. They were _his_ hands, broad and strong, palms calloused from years of scrubbing in the surgery. Underneath those hands her body looked delicate, and precious, and Jean looked away, a strange lump forming in the back of her throat. She remembered well the last time a man's hands had settled on her bare waist, the night before Christopher left to join the army. It was not a memory she wanted to recall, at the moment.

"Arms out," she told him, and when she spoke it was in his voice, thick with emotion, and she wondered if Lucien could discern her distress. If he did he did not comment, simply held out his arms and let her slide her brassiere over them. Once that was done she circled around behind him to fasten it, and once again she paused; had she ever seen her own back? Not like this, she thought.

 _I might be too skinny,_ she told herself; she could see the little ridges of her spine where it curved from her neck to the rise of her bum. She could see the curve of her bum, too, and tried to suppress a smile; _that_ , at least, she was pleased with. Was this what Lucien saw, every time she walked away from him? Did he enjoy the view?

_That is absolutely none of your concern, Jean Beazley._

It was markedly harder to fasten her brassiere with Lucien's hands; his thick fingers were clumsy, and Jean had never actually performed this particular task from this particular vantage point. Perhaps Lucien had, once, for his wife, for a lover, perhaps he would be more adept -

_You stop that at once._

"The dress, now," she told him, abandoning him for the moment as she returned to the bed.

"What, no girdle?" Lucien asked her, and though she got the sense he was teasing her she could hear the relief in his voice just the same.

"Oh, it's just the two of us at home," she said. "I think we can be forgiven for going without."

Lucien barked out a laugh, but it was not his deep, booming chuckle; rather it was her own tinkling little laugh, and Jean found she quite liked the sound of it.

"Here we go," she said.

Rather than pulling the dress over his head Jean had unbuttoned it, and she slipped it round his shoulders, helped him slide his arms through the sleeves before returning to the buttons.

It was, she thought, one of the strangest things she'd ever done - apart from her first experience in the loo the day before. It was strange, but it was lovely, too; Lucien had asked her to do this thing out of respect for her person, out of a desire to safeguard her virtue and reassure her of his own regard for her. It was a kindness she had not expected, but one for which she was profoundly grateful. But a rush of feeling surged through her, as her hands, Lucien's heavy hands, reached for the buttons between her breasts; Jean was in control, here, but the sight of Lucien's hands so close to her, performing such an intimate act with such gentleness, brought to mind other ways Lucien's hands might touch her, left a part of wondering how it might feel, to have his fingertips brush against her skin, and strangest of all some part of her could imagine it still, the press of his palms against her breasts, even as she stood not in her own body, but his. To her horror, however, it would seem she was not as divorced from the workings of Lucien's body as she might like to be, for as her mind wandered, as her breath hitched in quiet yearning, she could feel a part of his body beginning to react to her own arousal.

 _That_ absolutely could not be allowed to happen.

"All done, then," she said briskly, dropping her hands and stepping away from him at once.

Lucien's eyes fluttered open, and he looked down, inspecting himself for a moment.

"No stockings, either?" he asked.

"Do you want to wear stockings?" she fired back.

Lucien grinned.

"No, thank you. This is lovely, Jean. Much more comfortable than yesterday."

"Good," she told him, trying to sound businesslike. "I have some slippers, here, if you want to wear them."

"I was thinking I might just go without, if it's all the same to you. I'm still trying to work out how to walk."

Jean smiled at him wryly; she was having much the same problem. "All right, then," she told him. Why shouldn't he go barefoot in his own home, even if Jean had never done the same? It was hardly the most bizarre sight either of them would see today.

"Thank you," he added softly. "Now, shall we get you sorted?"


	5. Chapter 5

_Oh, for heaven's sake,_ Jean told herself as she stood silently at the end of Lucien's bed, _it isn't as if he's really going to see you naked._

The point of this little exercise, after all, had been to preserve both their modesty. When Lucien had stood bare for Jean's inspection it was her own body she saw, not his heavy nakedness. When the time came for her to peel the wrinkled shirt from her back and slip out of yesterday's trousers it would be _Lucien's_ body he saw, and not her own. Yes, in just a few moments Jean would be standing naked in front of him, but it was only his own shoulders, his own stomach, his own... _body_ that he would see. Not hers.

Why then, should she feel so nervous in this moment? Why were her hands trembling, why was her heart racing?

Lucien's bedroom was quite small, and not arranged for two people to stand together in it comfortably. He brushed against her as he moved about, gathering up the things he'd need for the day, murmuring apologies in her own soft voice, but his gentle courtesy did nothing to sooth Jean's fraying nerves.

The crux of the problem, she supposed, was that while this body was not _hers_ she was currently inside it. She could feel the chill morning air against her skin, could feel the warmth of his hand at the small of her back when he slipped by her. This body was not _hers_ but she felt what it felt, could not divorce herself from the reality of it, and Lucien seemed to draw new sensations from her with each passing second. Despite their sudden change in circumstances Lucien's behavior towards her had not changed in the slightest, but it was somewhat jarring to see her own hands reaching for his body, seeking to comfort, to protect, the way he so often did with her. How had she not realized before now how often Lucien reached for her, how often his hand came to light on her back, her shoulder, her waist, how whenever she turned she seemed to find him close beside her? When had _that_ begun? She couldn't say for certain, and she did not know how she ought to feel about it; what she did know was that each time his tender hands touched her now the racing of her heart only increased, and so, too, did her anxiety. This was a very dangerous game they were playing, and one Jean feared she was about to lose.

"Well," he said, in a very Lucien sort of way. He stood before her now, his fresh suit laid out on the bed, one of his hands pressed against his side. That was one of those little gestures Jean had begun to think of as pure Lucien, that and the way he smoothed the hair at the back of his head when he was nervous - in the next breath he had reached up and run his hand over his head in that telltale tick of his, and Jean lamented for she knew if he kept that up he'd ruin the set of her curls - and it almost made her smile, to see her own hands moving in those gestures, to know that however much things might have changed he was still, unequivocally, Lucien.

And he was about to see her naked.

"Let's get started, shall we?" he asked, reaching for the buttons of her shirt.

Without thinking Jean brushed his hands away, and she saw the flicker of hurt in his eyes, and wondered at it.

"I can manage," she said.

Did he think she didn't want him to touch her, even now, when it was only his own chest his hands would press against, and not her soft breasts? The truth was quite the opposite; the truth was Jean felt as if her every nerve ending was alight with anxious expectation, and she did not trust herself, should he touch her now. She needed a moment to collect herself, to cast aside all her strange wayward thoughts and calm down. After all, this was Lucien's body, and his arousal would be harder to hide. Care would need to be taken, she thought, to avoid disaster.

So she unbuttoned the shirt herself, and tossed it aside, left his vest in place as she pulled the belt free from his trousers and laid it on the bed. All the while Lucien watched her, eyes wide, lips pursed, but she did not dare look at him for more than a second, for the sight of her own face before her, wearing an expression she feared was one of longing, terrified her. Carefully she eased the trousers down off her hips, and laid them next to his belt on the bed. Now she wore only his vest and trunks, and those things would need to come off, too, and _oh,_ but Jean was not ready for this. She was not ready for the vulnerability of being utterly bare before him, utterly at his mercy, could not abide the sudden sense of defenseless that washed over her. This was Lucien's body, and surely he would feel no more stimulated by its revelation than Jean had felt about her own, but still, he would be able to _touch_ her, and she would feel his hands at her hips, her shoulders; not his hands, but hers, but they would be guided by _him,_ his consciousness, his wants, his desires, and _oh,_ this was confusing and terrible and dreadfully exciting.

"I'll take it from here, Jean," he said softly. He was right. These last few pieces he ought to remove himself, while she closed her eyes, offered him the same courtesy he had offered to her. But once her eyes closed and the world went dark there would be nothing left to guide her but sensation alone, sensation and _Lucien,_ and _oh,_ she feared what might happen next.

* * *

Lucien had never seen fear on his own face, but he saw it now, as he looked at Jean. She was _afraid,_ and he could not fathom why, when he was only offering to do for her what she had done for him, when she need not worry about his hands traveling to places they ought not go. The thought that he had given her cause to fear him wounded him, and he tried to move slowly, carefully, tried to show her with the gentle movement of his hands that he meant her no harm.

Slowly he caught his vest in his hands and tugged it up over her head, and Jean let him, lifted her arms compliant as a child while he pulled the vest away. Lucien generally paid very little attention to his personal physique; oh, he believed in hard work and exercise and he knew he was not a diminutive man, but he had not given a great deal of time over to the study of himself. So it was that he was actually rather shocked, as he looked at his body now, clad only in his trunks. Everything was different, from the lower vantage point Jean's eyes afforded him. Her body was slight, and delicate, and graceful, but her soul was vast, and her presence had always loomed larger in his mind than her physical frame. There was no denying it now, though, the stark differences between them, and he rather thought he might have begun to understand her fear. His height, his breadth, his heavy muscles, could have overpowered her easily, and it seemed to make no difference that she wore those muscles now; perhaps she still felt small, even standing inside his body.

 _You're getting fat,_ he thought wryly. He'd paid no attention to food for the last two decades, had only ever eaten what was placed in front of him, and before his return to Ballarat that had been rather sparse fare. Not so in this house, where Jean's graceful hands created the most wonderful meals; his belly had gone soft under her care. But the thought of it, the thought of the comforts of this house and the tenderness of Jean's treatment of him, did not give him cause for regret; instead he only smiled, and reached for his trunks.

Jean gasped, once, softly, as his fingers brushed against her hips, caught in the elastic and began to tug them down. It was the smallest, shortest intake of breath, but Lucien heard it just the same, and his own heart began to race as he knelt at her feet and helped her to step out of his trunks. Jean had never knelt before him like that, and he couldn't imagine that she ever would, but this was what she would see, if she looked up at him, his tall body looming over her, his…

Lucien spun away quickly, reaching for a clean pair of trunks and trying to calm his racing thoughts. There were some parts of himself he was rather more familiar with than others, and _that_ was chiefest among them. He knew it well, knew how to move, how to carry himself without causing discomfort, knew the weight of himself in his hand, knew the difference in his body when stepping from the bath compared to when he was in the throes of passion. And what he saw as he knelt at Jean's feet, was not...well, it wasn't…

Jean was _aroused._ Though she had not - he had not, or whatever the bloody hell - come to full hardness there was no denying that she was feeling _something._ That something about this moment, her standing naked in front of him, his hands against her skin, had set fire racing through her veins. _Does she know?_ He wondered, daring to glance at her face for a moment. Her eyes were still shut tight, her hands balled into fists at her sides, and...well, her arousal had not abated. His face did not flush so easily as hers, and so he could not tell if she was blushing, and with her eyes closed he could not see if her pupils were blown wide with longing. But surely by now she had come to realize, as he had discovered when he was a boy, that in some departments men were at a disadvantage. She could not hide this from him.

And the thought of it, the thought that some part of her might _want_ him to touch her, the thought that she was in some way excited by the prospect of standing naked for his inspection, seeped through his mind and left his own body reacting in ways he had not ever imagined. The odd little flip in her belly, the clenching of muscles he had always known existed but had never dreamed for a moment he might possess, left him reeling. There was no immediate rush of wetness, no surge of want like a lightning strike, but he was suddenly, keenly aware of certain parts of Jean's body he'd so far been studiously trying to ignore. The fabric against his skin, the brush of his thighs - her thighs - as he moved, the slow, languorous sense of want; he felt all of it, and it fascinated him, just how _different_ it felt, here in her body, but his knowledge of himself and his knowledge of her beauty combined into a strange, heady sort of arousal. This was how _Jean_ would feel, if she ever wanted someone - ever wanted him - and _oh,_ he would give anything to be the one to inspire such feelings in her.

Now was not the time, he knew. Jean was no doubt feeling a bit strange and vulnerable about the whole thing, and the circumstances were too bizarre. But one day, perhaps, one day when he wore his own skin, maybe then…

 _Back to work, Doctor Blake,_ he told himself sternly.

With a clean pair of trunks in his hands he returned to Jean.

"These first," he said, squatting easily by her feet and reaching for one of her calves, just as she had done for him. Jean's knees did not protest the strain of this position the way his own would have done; he'd always thought she moved like a dancer, and as he grew accustomed to her arms and legs he felt that fluidity, that grace, and was glad of it. Unfortunately, however, the... _situation_ between his legs was rapidly growing...well, _growing_ , and he began to sense that he ought to do something quickly, before matters got out of hand.

"Here we go," he said, once she'd stepped into his trunks, and as he rose he stepped behind her, tugging his undergarments into place around her hips.

It had been his intention, in moving behind her, to spare them both further awkwardness. This way he need not be face to face with his own tumescence, and without the heat of his body at her front perhaps her emotions might cool, and it was not difficult to pull the elastic out, and cover himself. It had been his intention to make them both more comfortable, but he failed rather spectacularly in that regard, for he had been in no way prepared for the swell of emotions that burst through him at the sight of his own naked back.

Never once in all the years since he'd been freed from the hell of Selarang had Lucien truly seen the ruins of his own back. Never once had he seen the thick scars that crossed from the base of his neck to the rise of his buttocks, angry and red and full of hate. He carried the memory of their making with him everywhere he went; the Japanese whips had been relentless, and they'd left his skin tight and marred and broken. Even now, nearly two decades later, he could feel those scars tugging each time his body twisted, never able to escape the truth of what he'd suffered. He carried the weight of his grief upon his back, never seeing it, and yet never being able to escape it, never able to lay his burden down.

Now, though, now he saw. Now he saw the truth of it, the terrible topography of war upon his own skin, and the breath rushed out of his lungs in a sob he could not contain. In an instant he was transported back to that place, his own screams of pain echoing in his ears; he could almost smell the stink of it, could almost feel the lash upon his back, the faces of his fallen comrades flashing before his eyes. He trembled, from head to foot, reached out a shaky hand; Jean would feel his touch, but it was not Jean he was reaching for. He was reaching for himself, reaching to touch this piece of his heart laid before him, this piece of his own history he'd never before been able to brush his fingertips against.

The scars were warm beneath his hand, but no warmer than the rest of his skin; they did not burn, though he could almost feel the sting of them even as he stood outside of himself. The scars were bumpy and hard, now, calcified with time. Another sob escaped him, and tears obscured his vision then as he felt his own body beneath his palm, but watched _Jean's_ delicate hand settle against his back. This was what she would see, if ever she let him hold her, ever offered him such grace. Her delicate hand, her red-painted nails, her soft fingertips, against the ravages of war and grief. Would she touch him gently? He wondered as he took in this terrible, beautiful sight. Would it comfort him, to feel her touch?

"Lucien," she said softly. "What is it?"

He could not find the words to answer her. Her voice was low, and tender, and he knew she was not asking him why he had begun to weep; he knew she was asking him about the scars, where they had come from, why they moved him so, who had done this thing to him. She'd been in his body for eighteen hours, now; surely, she must have realized that _something_ was back there. Even if she could not see it, he could not hide this piece of himself from her, any more.

"Lucien," she said again, when he did not speak. He could not move, frozen in this moment of remembered agony and longed-for peace, but in the end he did not need to.

Jean reached for him, one of his own large hands fumbling around behind her, until she caught hold of his free hand. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist and she pulled, gently, and he collapsed against her, wrapped his arms around her chest and pressed his face against her back, _his_ back. Jean covered his hands with her own and held them there against her skin, her touch a comfort to him. She did not question him, or pull him away, did not demand an accounting from him, did not ask him to divulge the truth of his heart to her. She only held his hands, and let him cry.


	6. Chapter 6

"Thank you, Jean," Lucien breathed into the stillness.

He was holding her, still, his arms wrapped her chest, his palm against her heart, her hands covering his. The moment was fragile, and precious, despite the strangeness of their circumstances. Sometime the day before Jean had become keenly aware of the fact that Lucien's back was marred by scarring; she had felt the tightness there when she moved, and the ache she felt when she stayed too long in any one position seemed to be the last vestige of some long-healed wound. That he should carry such grief with him was not in itself surprising; Jean knew he had been a soldier, knew he had been held captive for years by the Japanese, and she remembered well the stories people told in those days of what became of Allied soldiers at the hands of their enemy. But there was knowing, and then there was _knowing;_ though some part of her had always been aware that he must be scarred in some fashion she had not realized, before now, the depths of his pain, his grief. She still had yet to see the marks upon his back, and she feared them, for just the sight of them had left Lucien weeping and broken.

 _He's never seen them either,_ she realized as she stood within the shelter of his arms; just as she was learning about him so too was he learning about himself, confronting those secrets so long kept hidden, and her heart ached for him. The arms that held her now were not the heavy, powerful arms that belonged to him, but her own, strong in their own way and yet no match for his. The smallness of those arms, the way they strained to encircle the breadth of his chest, made her long to protect him, somehow, to give back to him the strength that she had taken while she stood within his body, to make him whole once more.

"I think I could do the rest, if you need some time," she told him softly. Really, Lucien had far less to hide than she did, and now that she was wearing his trunks the most damning bits of his anatomy were covered. Not that they had really been hidden from her in the first place, considering the ordeal she had to endure just to use the loo, but she had done her best not to look - or not look for too long - and she was covered once again.

"No, no," he said, and though it was her own voice she heard the words and tone were so clearly Lucien's that she could not help but smile. "It's only fair I finish what I started."

He took a deep breath and stepped away from her at last and though Jean knew it was the right thing she lamented, still, for the loss of the warmth of him at her back.

"Vest first, eh?" he said, snatching up the clean vest he'd laid on the bed.

If Jean were really intent on preserving his modesty she supposed she ought to close her eyes, as he had done. It was only fair, but Lucien wore her face, now, and she could not look away from it. He lifted the vest and Jean raised her arms, let him tug it down over her head, but as he did he drew nearer to her, and she took in the sight of him, of herself, hungrily. Her curls had gone a bit flat, in the night, and her eyes were red-rimmed from his tears, and there was a bit of yesterday's mascara smudged beneath her eyelids.

"We ought to wash your face," she murmured, and then, before she could think better of it, she reached for him, one of her thumbs brushing against the makeup beneath his eye. The breath caught in his throat; she heard it, and knew she ought to take her hand away, but still, she hesitated. Lucien had touched her face like this once, she recalled, that terrible day when those men had come banging on the door, shouting for Jack's head on a plate. Was this what he had seen then? She asked herself. The sorrow in her eyes, the soft wrinkles at the corners of her mouth, her usually perfect appearance marred by grief? When he had touched her then he had only been trying to comfort her, she knew, and that was all she was trying to do for him now.

"We ought to fix your hair," he answered with a wry smile, and he reached up then, lifted himself up on his tiptoes so he could brush his palm over his own unruly hair, sticking up at all angles now after Jean had spent the night tossing and turning in her bed.

"First things first, I suppose," she said, dropping her hand away from his face and gesturing vaguely towards the best and the rest of his clothes. There was something about seeing her own face looking back at her that made it easier to touch him, and she rather thought he must have felt the same. It wasn't technically improper, Jean supposed, if the body she touched was her own, but in her heart she knew that it was Lucien she reached for, and that made all the difference. The line of propriety was so far behind them now she could not even see it.

The trousers came next; Jean rested one hand on Lucien's shoulder to help her keep her balance while she stepped into them, and tried not to think about how warm he was, how steady he was, beneath her palm.

"No braces today," he said, reaching for his belt. Jean was grateful for that; she didn't fancy wearing braces on top of everything else, but as Lucien carefully threaded the belt through the loops at her hips she began to wonder if braces wouldn't have been better, after all. He would not have spent so long with his hands so close to her, if she'd been wearing them instead; her heart would not have had cause to race, as it did now. He was just _there_ , but it was her own hands she saw buckling his belt, and she could not help but imagine how it might feel if only they were standing in their own skin, if only she were reaching for that belt to take it off, rather than put it on. She knew, now, what secrets lay hidden beneath his clothes, and a part of her burned for him, however wrong it might have been. She was not in her own body but she could imagine it well, how it might feel to be at home in herself once more, with Lucien's bulk covering her, how deeply he could move her, how much they could share…

 _And it's cruel of you to imagine such things when you know they can never be,_ she told herself sternly.

The shirt came next, one of Lucien's crisp white shirts, pressed by her own hands. Jean slid her arms into it, and stood still as a statue while Lucien carefully did up the buttons. They had grown quiet, both of them lost in their own thoughts; how did he feel, Jean wondered, looking at himself like this? What was he thinking, seeing her hands so close to his body and yet not being able to feel the warmth of them against him? Were his thoughts anything like her own?

"I was thinking," she said quickly, wanting to dispel the silence and all its inherent potential for disaster. "If you're not wearing a girdle or stockings, perhaps I could go without the tie and waistcoat. It's only us at home, after all."

Lucien had nearly finished with the buttons, and as she spoke his hands fell away, leaving the last two at her collar unfastened. He was smiling at her, softly, and though the lips and the eyes she saw were hers the warmth in them was all _Lucien._

"I suppose that's only fair," he agreed. "Would you like a cardigan, though? It is a bit chilly." He ran his hands over his arms as if to warm himself, and it was Jean's turn to smile.

"Actually, I'm warm enough, thank you."

And she was. She used to tease Christopher, who always complained of being hot and never seemed to feel the chill, and she had grumbled about Lucien, who never seemed to think a fire was warranted, even when she was freezing. In her experience men were like that; they seemed to run hotter than she did. And now that she was standing in his shoes - not literally, she supposed, since her feet were bare - she could feel for herself that his body was plenty warm, while Lucien was discovering that she had never complained of the cold just to be contrary. He quirked an eyebrow at her in a gesture that was so familiar it made her laugh; no doubt his thoughts had run the same course.

"Well, in that case, Mrs. Beazley, I think we'll do," he said.

They were both barefoot and to Jean's mind half-dressed; neither of them was in the habit of walking around the house with so many accouterments discarded, and yet in that moment she was quite comfortable with the state of affairs. There was a familiarity between them now, having dispensed with most of the rules that kept them separate from one another; Lucien need not hide Jean's body from her gaze, nor did she need to hide his from him, and the end result was that they were both showing more of themselves to one another than they ever had before.

It was quite the strangest morning of Jean's entire life.

"Almost," she said, smiling. "A few finishing touches." She lifted her hand and brushed it over her hair, reminding him that there were still a few things yet to do.

"Lead the way, Jean," he said grandly, holding out his hand, and so Jean laughed, and they left that place together, marching back up the stairs so that Jean could help Lucien wash the makeup from his face. And when that was done she had half a mind to reapply it; a part of her wanted to show him just how much effort she put into keeping up her appearance, just how much more difficult it was for her to make herself presentable compared to his own morning routine, but another part of her only wanted to stay close to him, to draw out these precious moments for as long as she could.


	7. Chapter 7

"Would you sit still, please?" Jean chided him gently.

Lucien cracked one of his eyes open to stare at her incredulously. But of course it was his own face he saw, startlingly close, his own eyes trained on him with a look of studied concentration that was almost as endearing as it was unnerving.

"I _am_ sitting still," he grumbled.

Jean just laughed, and reached out to tweak his ear gently.

"Be patient," she told him. "We're nearly finished."

Lucien dearly hoped that was that the case. Already it seemed to him that he had been sitting on the little bench in front of Jean's dressing table for hours now while she faffed about, pinning back his curls - her curls - with deft, practiced movements born of long experience, despite the fact that she was still getting accustomed to Lucien's own much bigger hands. She had carefully powdered his face, and swept blush across his cheekbones with grace, and ease. She had painted his lips red, and now, at last, she had set to work on his eyes. Though she had conceded on the points of shoes and girdle and stockings she had likewise made it very clear that nothing less than a full face would do.

Lucien rather suspected she was trying to get back at him for something.

"Are you sure this is entirely necessary?" he asked her.

"Yes," she answered. "Now blink."

Confused, Lucien did as he was told, but as he blinked his eyes it became apparent what she was about; a mascara wand, dangerously close to his corneas, caught against his eyelashes. It was the strangest sensation, and reflexively he blinked several times more, like a dog shaking himself after emerging from deep water.

"Stop!" Jean barked with all the gruff command of a drill sergeant, and so he did.

"We don't want it to smear."

Lucien sat still as a stone while Jean inspected her handiwork; apparently she was not entirely satisfied for she retrieved a tissue from her dresser and dabbed at the corner of his eye gingerly.

He was not entirely a fool, and he was not entirely unfamiliar with the strange rituals that composed most women's private lives. He had, after all, been married once, been rather close to several women before that, had been blessed with a daughter of his own and three short years in which to watch Mei Lin slowly inducting her into the art of womanhood. Only an unobservant lout would assume that Jean woke every morning looking the way she did when she appeared in the kitchen. Dressing Jean for the day was a dance of many intricate steps, and while Lucien had to admit he rather enjoyed the results of her efforts - the ruby red of her fingernails and her lips, the way she painted her eyes to bring out their stunning color to its best effect - he was beginning to feel a bit...well... _guilty_ about the whole thing. His own morning preparations took far less time; yes, he always wore a freshly pressed suit, but it was Jean who did the pressing. It was Jean who sat him down at the kitchen table once every fortnight to neatly trim his beard, and Jean who pushed him out the door to go and see the barber when she felt his hair was getting too shaggy. The one piece of primping Lucien oversaw himself was the pomade in his hair, but that took him half the time it took Jean to pin her curls into their customary bouncy formation. There just seemed to be so much work involved in Jean's appearance, and now that he had seen her face fresh from the bath, and felt her smooth skin beneath his own hands - and sat miserable and impatient while she put on his face - he was beginning to wonder whether it was worth all that trouble, after all.

"Blink," Jean said again, softer now. He hadn't realized that his eyes were closed. This time he tried to fight the urge to reach up and wipe the mascara away; it wasn't heavy, exactly, but he could _feel_ it, and, unaccustomed as he was to the sensation, he didn't entirely enjoy it.

"It's not as if anyone is likely to see me today, Jean," he said. It was perhaps a bit silly to continue this particular line of defense when she was nearly finished, but he felt he had a point yet to make.

"I'll see," she murmured darkly.

"Well, but you more than anyone must know…"

The words came tumbling out of his mouth before his mind had a chance to catch up, and he trailed off mid-sentence as he realized what he was about to say, and how disastrous it might be if he finished that thought. Their situation was most precarious; their world had been turned upside down, and everything was strange and upsetting, and the last thing he wanted was to offend Jean now. Especially now, when she was so close, and touching his face so gently, as if she were hardly aware that she was doing it. Lucien was certain he had never spent this much time in such close proximity to her, and he had, until now, been enjoying it immensely. He didn't want to do or say anything to jeopardize the trust they had begun to build between them.

He should have known better, for Jean was hardly the sort to let such a matter lie unaddressed.

"Must know what?" she prompted him.

Having finished with the mascara she had reached for what appeared to be a small black pencil, and Lucien had shut his eyes tight, not wanting to watch as its point came so near such a delicate piece of himself. It was a strangely vulnerable feeling, sitting there entirely at her mercy, having not the faintest clue what she was doing or what she meant to do next. He had delivered himself, entirely, into her hands, hands that were suddenly so much bigger than his own, and her eyes were so very close that he knew if he opened his own he would see her, just _there_ , and he had the strangest suspicion that if she looked into his eyes now she would be able to see into his very soul, for it was her face he wore, and he could not hide it from her.

She would not rest until he told her, and he knew it, and so, though he feared it might spell the end of all pleasantness between them, Lucien took a deep breath and explained himself.

"You of all people must know that you're quite beautiful, even without all this." He raised his hand to gesture vaguely towards his face.

"Sit still," she murmured in a distracted, reflexively sort of way. Lucien clasped his hands together in his lap, and waited for her to berate him.

And yet she did not; she simply began to, very slowly, trace the edge of his eyelid with her little pencil.

"You're very kind, Lucien," she said after a moment. Inwardly he breathed a sigh of relief; he had been expecting her to admonish him for speaking to her so frankly. It was the very first time Lucien had ever called her _beautiful,_ though he had certainly thought it more times than he could count over the course of their acquaintance, and he did not know what to expect from her, now that he had said it. Her beauty was to his mind a foregone conclusion, something that anyone with two eyes and a heartbeat must of necessity recognize the first time they saw her, but he was privy, now, to the lengths she went to in order to put herself together, and he was beginning to wonder, for the first time, whether she saw that beauty at all, or thought it only the end result of pins and paints and a tight girdle.

"I know what I am," she continued then, and Lucien held his breath, listening, waiting, wondering. "I'm luckier than some and not as lucky as others. I'm hardly young anymore, and...well. Some things have changed." This last she added in a delicate, dissatisfied sort of tone that left Lucien full of questions. What had she looked like, when she was younger, and - to her mind, though not to his, never to his - lovelier? Who had she been, then? How had time changed her? In what ways did the Jean he knew differ from the Jean Christopher had married? _Would we have been fond of one another, then?_ He wondered. _No,_ the answer came almost at once. _She would have found me unbearable. Perhaps she still does._

"I'll never be Elizabeth Taylor. But certain things are expected, Lucien. And I will never leave the house looking anything less than my very best."

"I don't expect it, you know," Lucien told her softly.

 _I'll never be Elizabeth Taylor;_ Hollywood could keep her, as far as Lucien was concerned. He'd choose Jean first any day. She had a fondness for films, he knew, and a fondness for the magazines, kept up with all the happenings out there in the world; did she compare herself to those ladies, and find herself lacking? Lucien sincerely hoped not, though he didn't have the first idea how to tell her what he felt when he looked at her.

"You could be Gene Tierney, though, with that hair," he told her, wanting only to make her smile.

Jean laughed, and Lucien relaxed, ever so slightly, relieved. Perhaps that wasn't the best choice, though, he realized belatedly; it had been several years since the last big picture with Gene Tierney as a star, and while he had no doubt, after this revealing little chat, that Jean had modeled her hair on that particular actress the style was now a few years out of fashion. Did Jean feel left behind, too, the rules and standards that had guided her life now outmoded and outdated, and Jean herself left behind? The pretty young things favored trousers and longer hair, now, not rigorously styled and set like Jean's. Lucien was dead certain Jean didn't even own a pair of trousers. Did she want to? He wondered. Did she want to forge ahead into the light of this new day? Did she want to be adventurous, like Mattie and her friends, fierce and wild like Elizabeth Taylor? Or did she find comfort in the routines and strict adherence to her old ways?

"Honestly, Lucien, we're nearly finished, if you could just-"

"My nose itches," he said, and she laughed again.

"Silly boy," she said.

The fondness of her tone, the familiarity of her words, the ease with which she touched him, lanced through him hot and fast as a lightning strike and he found himself wishing desperately that he was in his own body once more, only so he could lean in and brush his lips against her cheek, and not feel her recoil in horror from the touch of her own lips. Maybe there were things Jean wanted to change about her appearance, pieces of herself she wished were younger, firmer, brighter, more beautiful, but Lucien would not change one single thing, not for the world. It wasn't Elizabeth bloody Taylor's face he saw when he closed his eyes, and it wasn't her body his hands had explored, guilty and reverent, in the bath the night before. It was _Jean_ he wanted, he knew that now, but he didn't have the first idea of how to go about it, or even if she would let him try.

 _She certainly won't while you look like this,_ he thought glumly.

"There," Jean said, and at last her hands left his face. "All done."

Lucien turned on the bench, and peered into the mirror. There was Jean's face, as he had come to know it, her war paint firmly in place, every inch of her perfect, and lovely. The sight of them together, Jean's body sitting on the bench, Lucien's body standing just behind her, the pride and satisfaction in his expression - her expression - as she looked down on her handiwork was strange, but it warmed his heart just the same. Perhaps, one day, it was a tableau they could recreate, under happier circumstances.


	8. Chapter 8

"Thinking of taking up a new profession are we, Mrs. Beazley?"

At the sound of Agnes Clasby's voice floating in from the doorway Lucien very nearly jumped out of his skin. Following the strange tenderness of dressing with Jean that morning he had settled himself behind his desk, pouring over a stack of books and back copies of _The Lancet_ , searching desperately, hopelessly, for some solution to their current quandary. Nothing had presented itself as yet, but he had only just begun, and he certainly had not anticipated Mrs. Clasby's arrival. Jean had rung his other patients and rescheduled his appointments, but apparently she had not been able to reach the inestimable Agnes.

Agnes, who was currently watching him with a shrewd expression while he gaped at her in a most un-Jean-like fashion. That simply wouldn't do; he closed his mouth at once, and tried to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

There was no doubt Agnes would think he - or Jean, rather - had lost his - her - mind if he tried to explain the situation. Who wouldn't think him mad, claiming that an unexpected electrical surge had resulted in his switching bodies with his beautiful housekeeper? No, it would be best if he kept the truth to himself. In order to do that, however, he would need to convince her that he was, in fact, what he appeared to be; that he was _Jean._ Jean who, at this time of day, ought to have been sitting at her little desk in reception, and not sprawled behind the Doctor's desk leafing through his books.

"I won't tell if you don't," Agnes said conspiratorially, breezing into the surgery and folding herself into the chair across from him, her handbag perched on her lap and her hands clasped together atop it.

"I'm afraid the Doctor is under the weather today, Mrs. Clasby," Lucien said carefully. It was Jean's voice he heard when he spoke, and he could only pray that Agnes would find no trace himself beneath the words. Jean would be mortified, he knew, if she ever found out that someone had seen him, pretending to be her; he must try his best to keep this conversation as brief as possible.

"Surely he can sign a prescription," Agnes said, grumpy as ever. "I don't need a thorough checkup, I just need a new bottle of my medication and the chemist won't give it to me without the Doctor's signature. Can't you just stick a paper under his nose, Jean?"

 _We could manage that,_ Lucien thought. It wouldn't be so difficult; he could slip from the room, find Jean, warn her to stay out of sight, and fill out Agnes's prescription himself, all without drawing suspicion. If he were quick, and careful, he might be able to get Agnes out of the house in the next ten minutes, and this little secret would be safe, one he and Jean could take to their graves with no one the wiser.

"I'll go and speak to him, Mrs. Clasby. Just one moment."

He rose from behind the desk and started to march out of the room as quickly as Jean's lithe legs would carry him, but he had no sooner rounded the desk than Agnes barked out a laugh.

"No shoes, Jean?" she said. "And no stockings either, I'll warrant. My, you have made yourself quite at home, haven't you?"

Jean would not like that one little bit, Lucien knew. Jean, who had told him only that morning that she never left her bedroom unless she looked her very best, Jean who never walked around the house barefoot, nevermind that by now she had spent more time living in it than Lucien had. She would never have wanted Agnes Clasby to see her red-painted toes, her bare ankles, and now it was too late; Lucien had, however inadvertently, just gone against Jean's stated wishes. It reminded him of her chipping fingernail polish; Jean took such care with her appearance, with her body, and though Lucien wanted to treat it - to treat _her_ \- warmly, reverently, respectfully, he could not help but feel as if he had let her down, as if he were not deserving of the responsibility he'd received when Jean's body had been delivered into his hands. _You really ought to be more careful,_ he thought morosely.

"We didn't expect to be seeing any patients today," Lucien said, somewhat defensively.

"Oh, it's _we_ now, is it?" Agnes asked, one eyebrow arched insinuatingly at him.

Lucien just gawped at her; it seemed that with each passing second he just dug himself deeper into this particular hole.

"It'll be our little secret, Jean," Agnes said, reaching out to pat her hand in a strangely maternal sort of way. "Everyone knows he'd be lost without you, dear."

"He would be, wouldn't he?" Lucien murmured, trying to mimic Jean's cheekiest grin. He rather thought he had been successful, as he heard Agnes laugh once more, but while he walked away from her he could not get her quiet words out of his head. Yes, he would be quite lost without Jean. He knew that, knew it down to his very bones, knew that it was Jean who had saved him, time and time again, from the moment he first set foot in this house. It was Jean who kept the surgery running, who kept him fed and housed, but more than that, it was Jean who made this house a _home,_ Jean whose flowers and knitting and silly aprons and gentle voice had turned this place he had once thought of as a prison into a refuge. It was Jean who kept him centered, Jean who gave him a reason to keep going, Jean who reminded him of the person he wanted to be, and helped him achieve those goals. Jean was _home._ And Lucien knew that, but what shocked him, in that moment, was the very casual way Agnes had remarked upon it. Was it really so obvious? Did _everyone_ know this secret Lucien thought he had concealed so carefully? And if they did, did that mean _Jean_ knew? Did she know how much she meant to him, how completely he relied on her, how lost he would be without her, how much joy she had brought to his life?

 _Perhaps it's time you told her,_ a little voice murmured in the back of his mind.

"Oh, Lucien! There you are."

It was his voice that called out to him, his body that rounded the corner into the kitchen and came to a stop in front of him, but the words were Jean's, and the apron tied around her waist was Jean's, as well. How she'd managed to get it to fit around his bulk he had no idea, and he could not help but laugh somewhat incredulously at the sight of himself, half-dressed without his tie and waistcoat and jacket, sporting one of Jean's more garish aprons. _Agnes would go into fits if she saw this,_ he thought.

"Listen, Jean, we have a little problem," he said, closing the distance between them at once. "Agnes Clasby is here."

"Oh." She deflated, slightly, her shoulders sagging, brow furrowing with worry. As he looked at her it occurred to Lucien that his beard was in need of a trim, but he resolved to save that particular detail for a later conversation.

"I did try to ring her, but she didn't answer. Oh, Lucien, what will we do?"

"She just needs a prescription," he said at once. "I'll write it out and walk it back to her. I've told her I'm - you're - _we're_ under the weather. I don't think she'll ask too many questions. I just need a bloody piece of paper."

"Right," Jean said. She turned away from him and crossed to the counter where the telephone sat, rummaging through the little basket there in search of pen and paper while Lucien did his best not to appear as impatient as he felt. It took no more than a few seconds, in reality, hardly any time at all, and yet those few precious moments while Jean searched for paper and pen were sufficient to breed disaster, for while he waited Agnes, who had been left alone for no more than a minute, came breezing into the kitchen.

"Mrs. Beazley, could I trouble you for a glass of water? I'm parched."

She was talking before she ever crossed the threshold, and her eyes went wide at the sight of Lucien and Jean. Lucien fought the urge to groan. He knew what she saw, now; what she saw was Jean, barefoot and stockingless, and Lucien only half-way dressed and wearing her apron, his shoes nowhere in sight. What must she think of them?

_She'll think we've gone mad. Perhaps she's right._

"Under the weather are we, Doctor Blake?" Agnes asked faintly.

"Nothing to worry about," Jean said in a cheery approximation of the tone Lucien so often took with Mrs. Clasby. He had to hand it to her; so far he rather thought she was more convincing as him than he was as her.

"And what about you, Agnes?" Jean continued. She'd found her pen and paper and settled herself at the table, looking every inch the doctor, save for the apron with its festive pattern of chickens and palm trees. "No funny turns lately? Nothing out of the order?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself with, Doctor Blake," Agnes answered in her usual defensive sort of way. While they were talking it occurred to Lucien that Agnes had asked for a glass of water, and Jean would never have hesitated to fetch one for her. Determined to do better by Jean than he had so far he crossed the kitchen then, and pulled down a glass as quickly as he could.

"Good, then," Jean said as she finished her scribbling. "Here you are, Agnes, that should see you through another month. Jean will ring you later to schedule an appointment. And next time, I will be doing an examination, you won't get off this easily a second time."

Jean rose from the chair just as Lucien finished filling Agnes's water glass. Rather negligently she passed the prescription off to Lucien and then wiped her hands on her apron front. _Do I treat always treat her this way?_ He wondered. Her manner had been breezy and rather unconcerned, and she did not hesitate to pass work off to him. Was that how she viewed his behavior? Oh, he knew he could be distractable, and that he sometimes lost himself in his own pursuits, but he did not like the thought that he might ever appear to be taking advantage of Jean. She deserved better.

"Now if you'll excuse me, ladies, I'm afraid I have some pressing business to attend to."

Without another word she turned and marched from the room, leaving Lucien and Agnes to stare after her in shock.

"What on earth has gotten in to him?" Agnes asked.

"Oh, you know what he's like," Lucien answered, rushing to hand over his burdens. As he did, however, he caught sight of the note Jean had written and discovered, to his delight as much as to his shock, that Jean had copied his handwriting so perfectly he would have sworn he'd written out that prescription himself if he didn't know better. When had she learned to mimic his handwriting so well? _How_ had she done it, when his handwriting was usually barely legible, even to himself?

"No one knows what's going on in that head of his from one day to the next," Lucien added.

"Well, mind you keep an eye on him," Agnes said, pausing to take a long sip of water before tucking the prescription into her handbag. "It's been lovely having him back with us, but some days I'm certain you're the only thing keeping him from pulling this house down around his ears."

"I do my best," Lucien said. Did they always talk about him this way when he wasn't in the room? He wondered. He didn't quite know what to make of that, but he was touched by Agnes's concern. It was nice to know she wanted him around, that she worried for him, that she trusted Jean to guide him.

"Well. Thank you for the water. Good day, Mrs. Beazley."

"Good day, Mrs. Clasby," Lucien answered, and then she was gone, and he was left alone with his chaotic thoughts.


	9. Chapter 9

The idea was that they ought to end the day in much the same fashion they'd begun it. Lucien would come to Jean and stand at the foot of her bed with his eyes closed and allow her to change him into his pajamas - her pajamas - for the evening, and when that task was through Jean would follow him down the stairs and allow him to do the same for her. Simple. Easy. They'd already navigated this dance together once; surely it could be done again.

Only the first time, the first time had been nearly impossible, for Jean. The first time, just the thought of his hands on her body, his proximity, the very idea of being naked and vulnerable in front of him, had nearly ruined her, for his body responded so much more...visibly to her desires than her own had done, and she did not have the first idea how to control it, not really. Perhaps it wouldn't be quite so bad this time; perhaps they could save fresh knickers and trunks for the morning. But Lucien's body would need a bath, at some point, and Jean's hair would need washing - should she volunteer to help him with that, to ensure it was done properly, to ensure he kept his hands to himself? - and _oh,_ the potential for disaster seemed only to skyrocket with each passing breath.

 _How long must this go on?_ Jean wondered grimly. She was sitting at the end of her bed, with her hands on her knees, waiting for Lucien, but when she looked into her mirror it was his face he saw. Already they had passed nearly two full days and one unbearable night like this, and she knew by the sounds of frustration that had filtered out from the surgery over the course of the day that Lucien was no closer to finding a solution for them than she was close to sprouting wings and flying away. No one had ever heard of anything like this before, Jean thought. She wasn't even entirely sure it should have been possible, and she certainly wouldn't have believed it could be if she hadn't experienced it herself. The thin threads of hope that had propelled her through this day were beginning to snap beneath the strain of reality, and Jean felt herself in danger of falling to pieces entirely.

Beyond her bedroom the storm that had been threatening all day rolled ever closer, dark clouds gathering while thunder boomed wild and implacable in the distance.

The problem did not lie with Lucien's body in itself; as far as Jean was concerned Lucien had a perfectly fine body. He had a perfectly lovely face, and perfectly warm, gentle eyes, and she had always been fond of the way his entire face crinkled up when he smiled. His shoulders were broad, his chest was - _magnificent,_ her traitorous heart whispered, though her mind would have declared it - perfectly adequate. His arms and legs were heavy with muscle, and with all those pieces put together he cut quite the dashing figure. There was nothing _wrong_ with Lucien's body - even the scars that marred his back, though she could not see them herself, she would not have called them _wrong_ or _bad_ or _ugly,_ for they were a piece of him - but it was not _hers,_ and for that reason alone she hated being trapped inside it.

Or perhaps, not _only_ for that reason; she caught her own eye - his eye, really, and that was troubling - in the mirror, and looked away at once. Yes, she wanted, more than anything, to be back in her own body, to be once more at home within the skin and sinew that had so shaped the course of her life, wanted to go amongst her friends and not draw suspicious stares, wanted everything to go back to the way it had been, before. She wanted her own life, the cooking and the housekeeping and the church and her sons, wanted her skirts and her aprons and her own knickers back, but this terrible experience had laid bare another, deeper want, a want she knew now had always been thrumming through her veins, however hard she might have tried to deny it, and she could see no way to satisfy that want so long as she wore Lucien's face.

She wanted _him._ His strong hands ghosting over her body, his soft kisses, the warmth of his embrace, the comfort of lying beneath him, safe and content. From the moment they first met she had felt drawn to him; in the beginning she thought it was only that she longed to save him from himself, and save her livelihood and his father's legacy in the process. Those particular motivations had shifted over time, as she got to know him; he was passionate, and reckless, and when he smiled at her her heart gave a funny little flip in her chest. She might have been quite content to ignore those first fleeting echoes of desire, had it not been for the circumstances in which they found themselves, but she had learned so very much about him over the course of the last two days that she now ached for him, with everything she had.

Jean had learned about the grief he'd endured at the hands of the Japanese, and the resilience of his spirit that had carried him through that ordeal. She had learned about the tenderness of his heart; he had been moved to tears by the sight of that grief writ large across his back, and he had let her hold him, let her comfort him, but more than that he had treated her so gently, so gently she could hardly bear the thought of it now. He must have seen, earlier in the day, the way she reacted to his proximity and his hands against her bare skin, and while he had been the perfect gentleman and not pressed her in any way still he had been so _close,_ and in the tense silence between them she had felt his own longing. She had seen that longing in his eyes, felt it in his touch; he wanted her, too, she knew that now.

And while logic told her that it would be best to ignore that want, even when they were themselves - for she was, after all, reliant upon him for wages and lodging, and neither of their reputations could survive the gossip that would inevitably follow should she let down her guard - the truth was if she had only been in her own body perhaps he might have tried to kiss her, one day, and perhaps she might have let him. Might have wanted him to, might have sunk against him in relief, might have soaked in the warmth of his affections the same way she slipped beneath the waters of a hot bath, comfortable and at peace.

Only now, with matters as they stood, she could not imagine such a thing ever coming to pass. After all, should Lucien choose to kiss her now, it was his own lips, his own beard he would meet, and not hers. Perhaps that wouldn't bother him so very much; he seemed to be handling things much more easily than she, and he was, after all, a far more adventurous spirit than Jean herself. Perhaps he would find the whole experience rather...exciting, but Jean wasn't sure she could bear it. It was _his_ kiss she wanted, and she would not know the beauty of it, the wonder of it, the rapture of it, until they had found some way to undo their wretched situation.

 _Maybe if you closed your eyes, it wouldn't seem so strange,_ a little voice whispered in the back of her mind. _Maybe in the dark it wouldn't matter so much._

That might have been true of a kiss, she thought. A kiss was just a kiss, and maybe if she closed her eyes she could imagine him instead, and enjoy it for what it was. But there were other things she longed for beyond a simple kiss, and no amount of imagination could shield her from the truth then. The thought of Lucien above her, around her - inside her - moving her to ecstasy sent shivers racing down her spine, but so long as their circumstances remained unchanged the... _mechanics_ of that particular endeavor were quite distasteful to her. She could not have what she wanted until she was at home in her body once more, but what if that day never came? What if she was doomed to spend the rest of her life in this prison of his flesh? How could the desire, the fondness - the _love_ , that same little voice whispered to her - she felt for him ever amount to anything at all so long as she was not herself?

In the midst of these particularly torrid musings Lucien appeared in her doorway, and Jean gave her head a little shake, trying to clear her traitorous thoughts away. She would need to focus, and do her best to control herself, and save her desperation and her grief for later, when she was curled up in her own bed, alone.

* * *

The procedure was much the same in the evening as it had been in the morning; Lucien stood very still, with his eyes closed, and let Jean peel him out of his clothes. Familiarity did not lessen the enticement of it, of Jean's hands warm between his breasts, plucking at the buttons of his dress, travelling down, and down, his treacherous thoughts wandering to other, more interesting pursuits they might enjoy, if only things were different. This strange experience had resulted in a sudden, shocking upheaval within Lucien's own heart; he had known, from the very first, that Jean was strong, and fierce, that her heart could be so gentle and so nurturing, that her body was fine and lovely. He had learned, over the course of their acquaintance, that she was brave and full of grief, even as he was, and he had grown to admire her, to feel things for her no man ought to feel for his own housekeeper. But now, now he knew how she could comfort him, how easily she could navigate even the most deplorable of realities, how utterly he relied on her, in every way, and he ached with longing for her.

What he wanted, more than anything else, was to kiss her. To take her in his arms, and hold her close, and pour out the depth of his affection for her. As she slipped the dress off his shoulders and danced behind him, intent on relieving him of his bra, his thoughts wandered into dangerous territory. If he were to try to kiss her with matters as they stood now, he was not sure she would accept him. He would, after all, not be himself, tall enough and broad enough to encircle her completely; his beard would not burn her lips, his hands would not span the expanse of her back. Though it would be his heart reaching out to hers it would not be his own hands he extended, and while he was rather more excited by the prospect than he would like to admit he could not imagine that Jean would allow it, not even for a moment.

Outside Jean's bedroom window the storm that had been threatening all day rolled over them, rain lashing against the windows while the booming of the thunder formed a nearly continuous chorus, in time to the pounding of his own heart.

Jean slipped the bra off of him, and returned at once to tug a nightdress on over his head. The moment it settled around him Lucien opened his eyes, and met Jean's gaze; her eyes were wide and sad, and her hands settled on his shoulders, not pulling away from him just yet. He held his breath, waiting; she was so wonderful, in every possible regard, and he wanted so badly to comfort her, to hold her, wanted them to find solace together, and yet -

"Will we be like this forever, Lucien?" Jean whispered in a broken little voice.

Lucien's heart shattered on impact; he had failed her, he knew. He had sworn he would find some way to put things to rights, but so far he had found nothing at all that might be of use. He had absolutely no idea how to fix this, or even if he could. No matter how he tried, no matter how badly he wanted to make her happy, to bring her home to the beautiful body that belonged to her, he was not certain, any more, that he ever could. And if he failed, truly, condemned her to misery and uncertainty and a life trapped in the wrong body - a body several years older than her own, he realized suddenly, and one that had been cared for much less meticulously, one that might well give out before her own should have done, and _oh,_ what if he had in his recklessness condemned her to a life of isolation and an early death? - how could she ever forgive him? How could she ever come to love him, as he loved her? How could they ever find their way out of this mess?

"No, Jean," he whispered fiercely. Her hands were still resting on his shoulders and he reached between them, caught her face in his hands and gently urged her to look down at him, to look into his eyes and see the sincerity of his heart. "I swear to you, whatever it takes, I will never stop trying. I will make things right, I swear it, my darling."

He had no other choice. She would never let him kiss her, let him hold her, let him love her, would never be happy again, he knew, until she was back home in the body that belonged to her. But his passion, his words had run away with him; _my darling,_ he had called her, for in his heart she was, _his,_ _darling,_ everything to him, the still point in his madly spinning world, his touchstone, his compass. She was dear to him, and precious, and he could not bear the thought of hurting her. But he had never used such a word for her, had never told her outright how much she meant to him, and he saw the way her eyes went wide, heard the little hitch in her breathing as he spoke that word _darling,_ watched the way her gaze darted down to his lips and away again, afraid and wanting. Perhaps she would not have him completely while they were stuck in this strange limbo, but perhaps she would not hold herself back from him entirely, either; he had to know for certain.

"Jean," he whispered, still holding her face gently. "You are the most incredible woman I have ever known, and I would be lost without you. I won't fail you, Jean. I won't. I will do everything within my power to make this right. And when I do, when I have...I will love you, Jean, until the end of my days. If you'll let me. If you'll have me."

So lost was he in the welter of emotions he saw swirling in her eyes that he took no note of the thunder, so loud and so close it rattled the whole house, took no note of the firework flash of the lightning beyond Jean's window; all he saw, in that moment, was her.

"Lucien," she breathed his name, not pulling away, not running from the fierce declaration he had just thrown at her, not balking in the face of his affection, but remaining locked in that moment with him. His heart soared in his chest; surely, he thought, if she did not want him, did not care for him, if there was no hope at all for them, she would have stepped back. Jean had never hesitated before, to tell him exactly what she was thinking, and he could not imagine she would let him say such things without admonishment unless she felt the same, wanted the same things for them.

And so he took a very deep breath, lifted himself onto his toes, and brushed his lips against hers once, gently.

The moment he touched her she gasped but did not pull away; she pressed her lips to his, harder, curled her fingers against his shoulders, held him there with her, and then -

And then, with a tremendous crash like the sound of a bomb exploding, lightning struck so near the house that the windows rattled, and a crackle of electricity surged through the air, and in a moment they were plunged into darkness as the power failed.


	10. Chapter 10

For a long moment Jean stood very still, her eyes tightly closed, hardly daring to breathe. Her head was spinning; had Lucien really just told her that he loved her? Had he really just kissed her? Had the power surge caused by that sudden, wild strike of lightning been sufficient to switch them back, given that it was a power surge that appeared to have caused this terrible mixup in the first place? In her heart, Jean prayed that it was so. Her entire being was fixed on hope, on the hope that when she opened her eyes she would be looking up at Lucien, and not down on her own face. Then, if she were safe in her own body, then, maybe, he might like to kiss her again, and if he did, she knew that she would be his, utterly, without recourse or regret. His wild heart, his gentle spirit, his tender care; she loved him, she thought, or could have done, if only she were given the chance, could have surrendered herself to his passion and his excitement and his strong hands, and followed where he led. Could have done it gladly, with her whole heart.

If only she were back in her own body. If she weren't...well. That prospect was too terrifying to even be considered.

She should have known better than to believe she could linger in that instant of possibility too long; Lucien was reckless, always rushing from one thing to the next, and he did not hesitate, not now, and not ever.

"Oh, Jean," he breathed, and despite her best efforts to contain it a terrible, choking sob of regret tore from her throat for when he spoke, it was her own voice she heard. The lightning strike had not done it; they were, still, locked in the wrong bodies.

Lucien wrapped his arms around her at once, and Jean gave in to her tears, let him hold her with his face pressed hard to the crook of her neck while she wept. It was just _wrong,_ she thought, so terribly, horribly _wrong_ that she should be trapped like this, that he should promise his love, his devotion, to her _now,_ when she was not in a position to accept it. It wasn't fair, somehow, that she had been offered this glimpse of him, this glimmer of hope for what could have been, only to have all her hopes torn to pieces. If the lightning strike had not done it she was certain now that nothing would, certain that they would be trapped, like this, forever, and all her dreams of love would turn to ruin, for how could he love a woman who wore his own face? How could she love _him,_ when every time she looked at him she saw her own home, inhabited by someone else, with no room left for her?

"I'm so sorry, my darling," Lucien whispered, and despite the grief that coursed through her the warm wash of his breath against her skin sent a shiver racing down her spine. He was close, so _close;_ _we were so close,_ she thought sadly. _So close to everything, and yet not close enough._

"What are we going to do, Lucien?" she asked him, her voice ragged from tears, her heart shredding itself to pieces with every breath she took.

Around her, beneath her, she felt him tense, and then he slowly pulled himself back from her, looked up at her with eyes wide and full of longing.

"We will survive, Jean," he said fiercely. "In here," he reached up, pressed his palm against her chest, just above her wildly racing heart, "You are still _you._ You are still as clever, and as strong, and as brave as you have ever been. You are still the woman who made Ballarat my home. You are...you are my _home,_ Jean, regardless of what you look like. You always will be."

Jean wanted, very much, to believe him. She wanted to believe that it didn't matter, that he could love her just as well like this as he could if only she were wearing her own skin. _Maybe it wouldn't matter, in the dark,_ that same terrible, hopeful little voice whispered in the back of her mind. _You're stuck like this forever, the pair of you. Will you give up now? Will you hide yourself forever? Or will you move forward?_

It was not the first time Jean had faced such a crossroads in her life. When she first discovered she was pregnant, nineteen and with a head full of dreams, she felt as if her entire life had ended, and no hope remained to her. But she could not change her circumstances, and she had forged ahead bravely, determined to make the most of her new life. With Christopher's help she had found joy, and love, light and laughter, and had all but forgotten any dreams that had gone before. When Christopher died she'd felt as if she had died with him, the love and the light he had brought to her disappearing along with his smile, but she had not given in then, either. She had carried on, and loved her sons, and devoted herself to the newer, smaller dreams of Christmas presents, and a mortgage paid on time, and supper on the table. When her boys had left her she had wondered whether she had any purpose at all, any more, wondered what good she was, middle aged, widowed, a mother without children to care for, no dreams left, but she had not let herself fall to pieces then, either. She had accepted Doctor Blake's offer of employment, and taken on a position caring for his fine house, and cultivated social connections and taken herself off to the Rex of a Friday evening and filled every moment with purpose, and all of it, all of it had led her here, to this moment, to this man. _Will you give up now? Or will you move forward?_

 _You are my home,_ Lucien had told her, and she understood it, now, for he was hers. He was the only person in the world who could ever hope to understand her, for the grief his heart had known ran parallel to hers, and now he stood inside her body, peering out at the world through her eyes. When she thought of _home,_ now, she did not think of her old farmhouse and her gold-tooth aloe; she thought of the little table in the kitchen downstairs, and Lucien sitting beside her. If they were trapped like this, forever, there was no one she would rather be trapped with than him.

_Maybe it won't matter, in the dark._

"I don't know how to do this," she whispered, closing her eyes for she could hardly bear to look at him when she spoke those words, each one of them a hand reaching into her chest, pulling out her heart inch by tortuous inch in order to deliver into his waiting hands. "Show me, Lucien," she breathed. "Show me what to do. Show me that it isn't too late, for us."

"I will," he swore to her at once. "I will, my darling."

Jean was trembling, head to foot, still staunchly refusing to look at him, but somewhere deep inside her excitement was beginning to build. Her heart was broken, her thoughts a tangled mess she could not decipher, but her body - his body - knew the truth her consciousness had not yet come to terms with. In the darkness it would still be their two bodies twining together, their two hearts comforting one another, their souls crying out for solace, and answering that call. Their circumstances were aberrant, abhorrent, but Jean believed, now, that no force on earth could undo what had been done, and she could not see spending the rest of her life without love, not when Lucien stood in front of her, offering her everything.

His hands once more reached for her face, his thumbs tracing the line of the beard that marked her cheeks. It was a soft touch, and a pleasant one, the warmth of his hand against her skin so full of tender affection. She was not watching him, though, could not watch, and so she was quite taken by surprise when she felt his lips brush hers once more. _A kiss is just a kiss;_ though he made to pull away she leaned into him, and she felt him smile before kissing her back, harder, with more purpose, and the fire of her desire began to simmer low and full of want. His hands trailed down her neck while still his lips pressed hard to hers, but her own dangled by her sides, not ready, yet, to reach for him and find the softness of her own nightdress instead. Maybe if he were gentle, maybe if he filled her with enough of his own passion, maybe if he encouraged her to lose her head completely, maybe then she would be brave enough, but for now, this moment, she was too scared, too confused, to cross that bridge just yet.

Still he kissed her, softly, and his hands continued their progress, drifting down her chest to begin very carefully unfastening her shirt buttons. That gave her pause; surely, she thought, he wouldn't just...dive right in. Surely they both needed a little time to adjust, didn't they? _This is madness,_ she thought. The thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed so bright she could see the sparkles of it though her eyes were still closed, and the rain lashed at the windows, and the wind howled, and suddenly Jean felt rather as if the world was ending. And if the world was to come to an end, what would it matter, really, how she spent her last few minutes?

"I want to show you everything," Lucien breathed against her lips. "I want to show you that nothing matters but you and I, my darling."

Of course he would believe that, she thought. Lucien lived in the moment, reached for every pleasure with eager hands, never worried what others might think, never worried about consequences. Jean was a very different sort of person; she never leapt without looking. Only now, now she rather thought that Lucien had the right of it, after all. No one else on earth could ever hope to understand their circumstances, and so why, then, should it matter to her what anyone else thought?

"Prove it," she whispered back, and in the next breath his tongue surged into her mouth and his hands tugged the shirt from her back and Jean felt herself falling, spinning, spiraling off into delirium.

The thunder roared, the lightning crashed, and she reached for him, her hand landing at the small of his back, pulling him closer. She ventured no further than that, clinging to some shred of reticence, not wanting to remember whose body she held in her arms, but it was a start, and Lucien recognized it for what it was at once. He kissed her passionately, desperately, messily as he tugged the vest from her trousers, and Jean let him, let him kiss her, let him carry her away on the current of his desires, let him pull the vest off her and toss it aside.

With her eyes closed Jean could admit that it felt quite nice, the slide of that satin nightdress against her overheated skin where their bodies pressed together. It felt better than nice when Lucien's fingernails scraped against her hips just above the waistband of her trousers, and it felt better still when he moved his kisses down the line of her neck. Soft kisses, suckling kisses, kisses that spoke of so much _more,_ and suddenly it occurred to Jean that Lucien seemed to have no reservations at all about touching her when she looked like this. Why was that? She wondered; did it really not matter to him, that the neck he kissed was not hers, delicate and graceful, but his own, thick and corded with heavy veins surging with want? Or did it matter very much, had he realized that no one would know better how to please this body than he would himself? _That_ was an interesting thought; Jean knew her body well, knew what pleased her and what didn't, had learned long ago how to be master of her own pleasure, and guide a lover where she needed him. What would it be like to reveal those secrets to Lucien, not to whisper pleas into the darkness and hope he understood her but to touch him herself, and let him _feel_ it? Was that what he was doing for her now, his lips pressed hard to her pulse point in a way that had his cock growing harder by the second?

 _Not his, but yours now,_ a brave little voice whispered to her. _If this is to be your fate, then perhaps it's time you owned it._

Lucien's kisses were drifting lower, across her collarbone, and his hands were reaching for the buckle of her belt, and something deep inside Jean seemed to snap, as if the lightning and the thunder had rent it as cleanly as a deadrot tree in summer. With both hands she reached out and caught his bum in her hands, squeezing hard as she rocked him against her, knowing he could feel the strength of her grip, knowing he must surely feel the press of her growing hardness against him, knowing how she would have responded to such an action, if only she were in her own body, and hoping he would feel the same.

" _Christ,_ _Jean,"_ Lucien gasped raggedly against her skin, shivering at her touch, his hair brushing softly against her neck. She was not brave enough to answer him with words, but she was terribly pleased with herself, for it seemed that the little bit of courage she had managed to find so far had been rewarded with the answering call of his own desire. Could he feel it, she wondered, as she once had done, could he feel the heat and the wet and the clenching longing that used to overtake her, when she stood where he stood now? And if he could, what did he think of it, of her?

"Come here," he whispered, and in the next instant he had ducked his head, laved his tongue against her nipple while his hands pulled the belt free from her trousers, and Jean swayed on the spot, awestruck by the way her body responded to his touch, the way every fiber of her being seemed to jump and crackle with electricity. Would she have laid her mouth against him like that, if their roles were reversed? Would she have thought to do such a thing in a moment like this? Yes, probably, but she never would have known how it made him _feel_ , and now she felt that desire thrumming her veins so thick and so heavy she ached within the confines of her trousers.

Her hands drifted back up his back, catching the nightdress as she went, but she had no sooner resolved herself to take it off him than he tugged her trousers and trunks both down off her hips, and she was forced to abandon her attempt in order to help him. Her eyes fluttered open, not wanting to crack her chin against his head as she tried to step out of the remnants of her clothes, and to her utter shock when she looked upon him, saw her own face flushed with desire, her own hair falling out of its careful set, her own breasts heaving with each of his panting breaths, she did not feel disgust. She expected it, but it did not come; what came instead was only a sense of wonder.

This was what he would have seen, if only they had fallen together properly. This view of her, utterly without artifice or shame, and it was, she was... _beautiful,_ she realized. Beautiful, not marred by desire but made transcendent by it, and _oh,_ what a gift it was, she thought, to see such a thing.

Before she could reach for him Lucien grinned and tugged the nightdress off over his head, and the breath left her lungs as they stood there, together, naked. His body, hard and scared, hers soft and no longer as taut as it once had been, there the proud strain of his cock, there the dark thatch of curls at her center, there his hardness, her wetness, their want; _are we really going to do this?_ Jean thought in disbelief, faltering somewhat as the reality of what they meant to do began to set in. Perhaps some of her distress showed on her face, for Lucien reached for her then, and without hesitation wrapped around his hand around her heavy cock.

Jean's head snapped back, her heart nearly stopped in her chest while a deep, uncontrollable groan escaped her; nothing could have prepared her for this, for the way it felt when he touched her _there_ , for how completely he owned her, in that moment. She would have gone anywhere, done anything, if only to keep his hands on her body, and the world seemed to shatter all around her like so many shards of glass, sharp and brittle and tinkling like bells while everything she'd ever known fell to pieces. The loudest boom of thunder yet roared through the air and lightning struck so near the house she was certain it must have lanced through her very heart, and Lucien's eyes _\- her eyes -_ burned bright and clear as stars and then -

Then, as if the entire world had turned upside down she felt herself falling away from him, thrown backwards with such speed she felt as if she'd been hit in the chest by a train, and she went tumbling back against the carpet, the world spinning, the wind howling; _this is the end,_ she thought faintly. _This is the end of everything._ Lights seemed to explode behind her eyelids and she felt herself consumed by the terrible, suffocating sensation of being caught beneath the pounding waves of the sea, spinning, turning, kicing desperately but not knowing which way was up, every inch of her burning, trembling, tearing apart, and then -

And then, suddenly, stillness. The rain had slowed to no more than a drizzle. The lightning and thunder retreated, no longer close and constant, fading into nothingness. The dizziness, the burning sensation of electricity crackled and fizzled out and Jean found herself grounded against the floor. Tentatively, carefully, she flexed her fingers, her toes; everything seemed to be in working order. Gingerly she lifted her head, and with a heart full of dread, she opened her eyes. There was no hesitation, no breathless moment of possibility this time; this time, she could not wait, simply had to see for herself at once what had become of them.

She was, still, in her bedroom. She was, still, naked. But she was no longer looking at herself; when she opened her eyes she found Lucien crumpled against the end of the bed, wearing the same bemused, confused, half-unconscious expression she was sure she was sporting herself. Lucien, broad and strong and naked, _Lucien,_ she could see _him._

A ragged, desperate cry left her lips and she launched herself at him, laughing, crying, shivering as he folded her in his arms and they went rolling against the floor, hands hungrily mapping one another's skin. There were not words for this, this relief, this joy, this rapture; Jean kissed him, messily, hardly caring where her lips landed, for everywhere they touched she touched _him._ It was _his_ face she saw, now, his beard on his cheeks, his half-hard cock warm against her own soft thigh, her red-tipped fingers pressed against his skin when she moved her hands. Somehow, some way, the second lightning strike had done what the first could not, and set everything to rights. Jean was, at last, _home,_ where she belonged.

"Oh, my darling," Lucien laughed, tears staining his cheeks as he returned her kisses, his lips pressing benediction to her skin everywhere they touched, his hands never ceasing their endless exploration of her back, her shoulders, their bodies melting into one as he cradled her in his arms. "My beautiful, wonderful Jean."

She could not answer him with words, only kissed him, his lips, his cheek, his temple, the curve of his ear, delighting in every new sensation as it came. There was no need to wonder, any more, how it might feel should she ever get the chance to hold him; she was holding him now, and nothing she had ever imagined had ever come close to the bliss of this moment.

"I love you," he whispered, her teeth catching against his lip as he spoke. "I love you. I want you, Jean."

Deftly he rolled them, pressed her back against the unforgiving carpet, and Jean lifted her legs at once, caught his body between her thighs and looked up at him in wonder. So much had changed so quickly she could not even begin to understand it, could not fathom the metamorphosis of her own heart, but as she looked at him, reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, watched him smiling down at her so joyfully, so warmly, she found she did not care.

"Nothing matters but you and I," she told him, and the last thing she saw before his lips met hers and her eyes closed in bliss was Lucien's brilliant, beautiful smile.


End file.
